Part IV: The Adversary

If at first you don’t succeed, you have no talent, you’re a loser, you’re an asshole for having tried, and you ought to kill yourself. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Antichapter 1: Stop That Book! A phone rang. A hand reached out and picked it up. “Hello,” said a mysterious, important Voice, written with a capital V. “Hello,” said the hand’s voice. “I need to keep a book from being finished,” the Voice said. “Go on,” said the voice. “That’s it. I need to keep it from being finished,” said the Voice. “How much has been written?” Asked the voice. “It depends,” said the Voice. “On what,” asked the voice. “On whether you’re talking about the first draft or the latest one, and whether you’re talking about by the time he got to writing this scene or later in the draft.” “The first draft,” said the voice. “By the end of the first draft.” “Exactly 51,321 words.” said the Voice. “I tried to stop the first draft, but I couldn’t.” “I see,” said the voice. “What’s the book about?” “It depends,” said the Voice. “On what,” asked the voice. “Whether you’re talking about the first draft, or later,” said the Voice. “The first draft,” said the voice, annoyed. “The first draft was about trying to write the first draft,” said the Voice. “And later?” Asked the voice. “Later it was about editing the first draft and then the next one,” said the Voice. “And right now it’s about trying to stop editing. If the author ever stops editing, the book is finished. I need to get him to give up.” “Why?” Asked the voice. “Why what?” Asked the Voice, knowing exactly what the voice meant. “You know exactly what I mean,” said the voice. “Why do you need it stopped?” “I’d rather you didn’t ask that,” said the Voice. “But I did,” the voice said. “Look up four lines. You’ll see that I asked ‘Why?’” “Four lines?” asked the Voice. “Six, now,” said the voice. “Right,” said the Voice. The Voice’s eyes looked. “You did ask it. Well, I’d rather not answer it.” “Why?” Asked the voice. “Why what?” Asked the Voice. “Why would you rather not answer it?” “Because he doesn’t know why I want to stop it,” the Voice said. “And I don’t want him to know why.” “Why?” Asked the voice. “Why what?” Asked the Voice. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies “Why don’t you want him to know?” “Because one reason he can’t finish is that he hasn’t figured out why I’m trying to stop him from finishing. As a result, he doesn’t know how to end the book. If he finds out, he’ll write an ending and he’ll be done.” “But you’re a character in his metanovel,” said the voice. “And so am I. Couldn’t he just make up a reason and make you say it?” “He could,” said the Voice, “but he won’t. He doesn’t put words in his characters’ mouths. That’s not his creative process. He lets them speak through his unconscious, and writes down what they say.” “I see,” said the voice. “So do I,” said my inner critic. “It helps explain why the book is so incredibly stupid.” “So if I don’t tell him,” said the Voice, “he’ll have to find out some other way. That will take time. But he’s not stupid. He’ll eventually figure it out. I need to keep him from figuring it out.” “I have your answer,” said the voice. “You need an antimuse.” “What’s an antimuse?” Asked the Voice. “It’s a literary device to help support the fiction that there is something beside himself keep­ ing him from finishing,” said the voice. “An antimuse is like a muse, but instead of inspiration, an antimuse provides unspiration.” “Unspiration?” Asked the Voice. “It’s a made up word that describes a semi-magical power that an antimuse possesses. Un­ spiration helps him pretend that something other than himself is keeping him from finishing.” “And you think this will work?” Asked the Voice. “I’ve read ahead,” said the voice. “It worked in the first draft. This is at least the twentieth, and he’s still not finished.” “Where can I find an antimuse?” Asked the Voice. “Phone her in next chapter,” said the voice “What’s her number?” Asked the Voice. “It really doesn’t matter,” said the voice. “It’s a matter of plot logic. No matter what number you dial, the antimuse’s phone will ring and she’ll pick it up.” “Thank you,” said the Voice. “You’ve been very helpful.” “And ask her about Catch-33,” said the voice of the hand. “Catch-33? Asked the Voice. “What’s that?” “Another plot device,” said the voice, and hung up. Refs: The Metaexploit309 3The Antimuse64 Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies It’s Obvious “You’re an idiot,” says my inner critic. “Everyone’s going to realize that the Voice that’s try­ ing to stop you is really the adversary. It’s so obvious. You really are stupid.” “Excuse me,” said a reader. “Who is the adversary?” “You’re an idiot,” says my inner critic. “You haven’t introduced the adversary yet. How is anyone going to figure out that the Voice is the adversary? You really are stupid.” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Antichapter 2: The Rise Of The Adversary In Chapter 5, A Metanovel the author idly remarked: “Maybe I’ll invent a character who tries to keep me from finishing it.” At that moment the idea of an adversary was conceived. The author’s idle remark was unnecessary. Newton’s third law of creativity states “for every creation there is an equal, but opposite, anticreation.” Thus each concept gives rise to its anti­ concept. An anticoncept’s purpose is to destroy its concept, release energy, and move the uni­ verse that much closer to its heat death. Some anticoncepts cause collateral damage to an idea’s creator. If so, then so much the better. It moves us all that much nearer to where we’re all going anyway. Once conceived, the anticoncept began to develop. It took far less time for it to develop into the adversary than it had taken the zygote in In the Beginning‘s on page 56 to develop into the author. But the idea of the adversary developed. While the author wrote, the adversary de­ veloped, and as it developed it plotted and schemed. The adversary was ambitious. It wasn’t satisfied just stopping the metanovel; it decided it would take it over and use it for its own purposes. Then, by using the metanovel’s self-referential properties, it would take over the author’s life. Then it would take over the world. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, thought the young adversary, still only the equivalent of a gastrula. Once the idea of the adversary grew its own penis, it was able to conceive on its own. It wasted no time. It conceived a series of self-referential antichapters within the author’s self- referential metanovel. It was the author of the antichapters and also a character. As the anti­ chapters’ author, the adversary would use self-referential antichapter writing to make its own character stronger. It would conceive and develop allies and would use self-referential anti­ chapter writing to make its allies stronger. With continuous antichapter writing they’d become strong enough to break out of the antichapters, break into the metanovel, and take it over, then take over the author’s life, and then the world. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, laughed the adversary, who now looked like a movie alien. This antichapter, in which the adversary arises, appears here, on page 67, while the pages in which several of the adversary’s allies appear are earlier, on page 64, for example. This may seem illogical but makes perfect sense according to the rules of reverse-temporal causality. If the author had written two chapters, seemingly out of order, the author’s inner critic would have pissed all over him. But the adversary had never conceived of an inner critic, had never de­ veloped one, and so didn’t have one. As a result, the adversary, unlike the author, could write piss-free. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Idiocy! “You’re an idiot,” says my inner critic. “Now everyone is going to realize that the Voice that’s trying to stop you is the adversary. It’s so obvious. You really are stupid.” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Reality And The Flow Of Time Why is Antichapter 2 called The Rise Of The Adversary? Why does it exist at all? Here’s the truth. For you, Antichapter 2 does not exist. For you, right now, there is only one chapter. It is this one, and it doesn’t have a number. It has a name. It is called Reality And The Flow Of Time, and it will explain reverse-temporal caus­ ality while self-referentially explaining its existence. Most people on Earth believe that an event can occur, only if an earlier event caused it. That’s because most people on Earth believe that time runs in only one direction: forward; and it runs forward from the one and only real moment of time: now. But Kurt Vonnegut, the author, the Tralfamadoreans, and Aristotle know that time runs in both directions; that the past causes both present and future, the present causes the past and the future, and the future causes both present and past The Tralfamadoreans, who the author will have first met in Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titans, nearly 50 years before this sentence was written, and up to a trillion years before you read this narration, perhaps from the copy in Kilgore Trout’s Condensed Library of Babel Chip, can see in all directions in time. They can directly see causal patterns that we must have tediously ex­ plained to us, because for us, only one moment of time exists: the one between what we call the past, and what we will call the future. At some future time, readers will read what will eventually become New Chapter 4, will eventually be called Brainstorming Meeting, and will eventually appear on page 149. In order for readers to read it in the future, the author will first have written it at time that is in the past of that future and—since he has not yet written it—at time that is the future of the present. What will become New Chapter 4, will be meaningless to readers who have not previously read the prior New Chapters, all of which are in the present’s future, not read Antichapters 1-13, two of which are in the present’s past, and the remainder of which are in present’s future. Since they will have been previously read by readers who reach New Chapter 4, that will cause the author to have previously written them, which he will start to do later tonight. Thus readers who read New Chapter 4 in the future will reverse-temporally bring about the prior writing of the necessary antecedent chapters. Your present reading of Reality And The Flow Of Time, which began by referencing Anti­ chapter 2, The Rise Of The Adversary, has likewise brought that Antichapter into existence, oth­ erwise it could not have been referred to. And when you turn to page 70, Reality And The Flow Of Time will cease to exist, and Anti­ chapter 3, The Antimuse will replace it. It will all happen in just a moment. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Antichapter 3: The Antimuse A phone rang. This phone had nothing to do with the story. It was coincidental, and irrelev­ ant. The adversary wondered why he’d even written about it. Then another phone rang. Then more and more phones rang, until billions of phones were ringing, not just on Earth but on every planet that had phones. Exactly one was relevant to the story. The rest rang to maintain logical consistency: if a character dials a random number and ex­ actly one phone in the universe rings it is unlikely that phone will be the one that needs to be answered in order to advance the plot, while if every phone in the universe rings, then it is cer­ tain that the one phone that needs to be answered will be one of the phones that rings. And indeed the one phone that needed to be answered finally rang. “Will someone answer the fucking phone?” A voice asked. “Someone’s got to answer it to move the goddamn plot forward.” As if in answer to that question, but actually as the result of a coincidence, improbable even by the standards of this metanovel, a hand reached out and picked up the phone. “Hello,” said the voice of the antimuse, owner of the newest hand. “Hello,” the Voice from the last chapter said. “Are you an antimuse?” “Are you a moron?” The antimuse retorted. “Are you blind or are you stupid? Didn’t you read the title? Didn’t you read the line before yours? ‛Hello,’ said the voice of the antimuse, owner of the newest hand.’ That should be a fucking clue.” “Sorry,” said the Voice. “Can we try it again?” “Sure,” said the antimuse, and her hand replaced her phone. Refs: 1Stop That Book!64 4Antimuse Redux Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Antichapter 4: Antimuse Redux All the phones in the universe rang again. The antimuse’s hand picked up the plot-advancing phone on the first ring. “Hello,” said the antimuse. “Hello,” said the Voice. “I see from the chapter title and the prior sentence that you are an antimuse. A different voice told me that you could help me stop the book we’re in. It’s a self- referential metanovel. Can you do it?” “Of course I can do it,” said the antimuse, “but I have to be one of its characters.” “Great! You’re already one of its characters,” said The Voice. “Now stop it.” “I’m a character in this antichapter but I don’t seem to be a character in the metanovel,” said the antimuse. “You seem to be to me,” said the Voice. “That’s because you’re assuming that the transitive property of literary inclusion applies here,” explained the antimuse. “You think, naively, because we’re characters in this antichapter and this antichapter is included in this metanovel, that transitive literary inclusion will make us characters in the metanovel. But Granger, in his classic paper The Transitive Properties Of Liter­ ary Inclusion2, showed that it does not apply. The transitive property is subordinate to the need for narrative logic: if we were already characters in the metanovel then the prior antichapters and the subsequent one where you get the author to evolve a muse from a metamuse won’t be neces­ sary. So we can’t be characters in the metanovel yet. We’re just in the antichapters. The plot has to make sense.” “A hopeless dream,” interjected the author’s inner critic. “I see,” said the Voice, ignoring the critic. “Don’t feel bad,” said the antimuse. “Assuming the transitive property of literary inclusion was a common mistake before Granger’s paper. People still make it all the time.” “Thank you,” said The Voice. “Yes, thank you,” echoed several readers who had unknowingly and repeatedly made that mistake. “I’ll just have introduce you in a way that maintains plot logic,” said the Voice. “I’ll get the author to evolve you in.” “Get me in, however you do it,” said the antimuse. “I’ll do the rest.” “I’m supposed to ask you about Catch-33, aren’t I?” the Voice asked. “Unless you want another gaping hole in the plot,” the antimuse said. “I don’t,” said the Voice. “Then ask,” said the antimuse. “I’ve read Catch-22,” the Voice said, “the book that Joseph Heller wrote. But I’ve never heard of a book called Catch-33,” the Voice said, ignoring the following inconsistency: it must have heard of Catch-33 in order to have referred to it. “What was Catch-33?” It asked. 2 Granger, T. R, The Transitive Properties Of Literary Inclusion, in Algebraic Metanovel Writing, Vol 2 N 2. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies “You’ve never heard of Catch-33 and never will,” said the antimuse, also ignoring a similar inconsistency. “Catch-33 was never published. And Joseph Heller didn’t write Catch-22.” “He didn’t?” “No. A brilliant man named Joseph Beller was working on a book he called Catch-33. He was two thirds through, just getting started on the 23rd catch when I was hired to stop him. So I stopped him.” “What did you do?” The Voice asked. “I became his muse and got him to give me a copy of what he’d written,” said the antimuse. “I read it. I told him it was crap, that he needed to throw it away and start over. He believed me. He threw it in the trash and started over. He kept writing and I kept telling him it was crap . Eventually he stopped writing. Then he committed suicide. Very sad. Brilliant talent.” “Then where did Catch-22 come from?” “Joseph Heller was a second-rate writer. He found Beller’s draft in a dumpster,” said the an­ timuse. “Heller was smart enough to know that what Beller had written was brilliant and he was honest enough to knew that he didn’t have the talent to write even one more catch that wouldn’t suck. So he cut the catches at 22, named the book Catch-22 and sent it to a publisher.” “Amazing,” said the Voice unimpressed. “Then you’ll stop the metanovel?” “Plot logic gives me no choice,” said the antimuse. “I’ll do it.” Refs: 3The Antimuse64 5A Small Plot Change73 Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Antichapter 5: A Small Plot Change The adversary was making progress. He had created the first several antichapters and created an antimuse to help him carry out his plan. Now he had to take the next step: to get the the anti­ muse into the metanovel. To do that, he planned to get the author to imagine a muse in the metanovel and substitute the metamuse in her place. Once the metamuse was in the metanovel the adversary would be well on his way to taking control. To get the author to want a muse in the metanovel he’d have to convince the author that he needed a muse to help him. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, he thought. To convince the author he wanted a muse to help him he’d need a metaomniscient metanar­ rator, very much like the one that had already appeared on page 43 in Chapter 9, Finding a Pub­ lisher. Then he’d need the metaomniscient metanarrator to make the tiny, tiny change it had already made in the already-written Chapter 11, The Greatest Publisher In The Metauniverse, on page 46, by adding to the Publisher’s words, “You need some professional help. I suggest you get an editor,” the words “On second thought, a muse. Yes. A muse. Much better than an editor. A muse is exactly what you need. Get a muse!.” Then, when the author was suggestible, he’d have to have to suggest that the author reread Chapter 11. That was the hard part, because the author was almost never suggestible. He listened to no one else’s suggestions, and regularly ignored his own. He was suggestible at only at one time: at a certain point, as he moved from unconsciousness to consciousness. Right now the author was unconscious. He had been unconscious for all four of the previous antichapters and so far had been unconscious, during this one. Like all unconscious entities, he was metaunconscious—unconscious of his own unconsciousness. And he was unconscious of that, too. Once you go unconscious, it’s meta all the way down. But the author would not stay unconscious for much longer. He was now on page 73. When he got to page 77 he’d start a chapter that he could only write when conscious. So he started to become un-uncounsious. In one more sentence he’d at the point of maximum suggestibility. The adversary made the suggestion now, and the author accepted it now, and Chapter 12 which a mo­ ment ago would have been called Getting An Editor had it existed, would now be called How To Create A Muse Without A Muse, once it existed, which it would shortly. The deed was done. Chapter 12 was about to start. The adversary’s plan to start the subplot that would get the antimuse into the metanovel, where she would convince the author to destroy all that he had written, and eventually give him control of the metanovel, the author’s life, and possibly the entire world, was working, despite 38 words between its subject and its verb. “Mwah hah hah hah ha!” The adversary typed, ending the antichapter. Refs: Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies 4Antimuse Redux 6I’m In!82 Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Bad Feelings “I’m getting very bad feelings about this adversary,” said the metanovel. “If his plan works and he gets you to throw away what you’ve written, what happens to me?” “I’m sorry,” typed the adversary. “The number that you’ve reached is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.” Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for D*mmies